Real Friends Drink Beer
by Trogdor19
Summary: Mid-season 3. LoVe broken up but not with other people. Wallace friend-dumps Veronica and she runs to Logan bc she knows he'll be honest, not nice, about if she's really a shitty friend. She gets a little more wisdom and a lot more kindness than she expected. Angst, steam, friendship and a couple of heart-tugging reunions
1. The Lonely Boy In The Tower

_Author's Note: Okay, so this fic is a little more emotional than bantery, which is probably good because I'm still dialing in the dialogue patterns for these two characters. Promise I'm studying up so I'll be able to nail the repartee for future fics! I had to write this because I was always annoyed in the show at how Veronica asked Wallace for a lot of favors, but rarely seemed to be around to support him in more emotional ways. First chapter is mondo long, sorrynotsorry._

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**Chapter 1: The Boy In the Tower**

**_Text messages_**

Veronica: Are you alone?

Logan: Just let me send the Swedish bikini team back to their rooms…

Veronica: I'm serious

Logan: Why, Miss Mars, is this a booty call? Because I do believe you said we were broken up.

Veronica: I need to ask you a question.

Logan: Okay, nice try but if you're going to steal Veronica's phone, make an effort to learn her lingo. Where is she? And BTW her father can track this phone so you've got about six minutes before I get there. Enjoy your last six minutes of having intact kneecaps.

Veronica: Whoa, can't a girl not make a joke without getting kneecapped for it? Do I need to prove it's really me? You hide your pot in the air conditioning vent behind the second bedroom, which is pointless because Dick keeps his on the coffee table. Also, the maids found your stash three weeks ago and yes, they've been skimming.

Veronica: Just having kind of a night and didn't want to walk in on your usual Bacchanalia. I'm here and I'm coming up.

#

**Logan**

I'm still frowning at my phone barely a minute later when she knocks. In what shitty parallel universe does there exist a Veronica Mars with all her snoopiness and none of her sense of humor?

I open the door. "Before you even ask, whatever the night in question is, I was with thirty-six nuns at a special presentation of 'The Role of Faith in Due Process' at an FBI convention. And yes, in fact I do have all their depositions backing up that alibi. Notarized. In triplicate."

The door rolls off my fingers, sliding closed with its luxurious, spring-buffered hush. It's one of the things I love about living here.

1\. No slammed doors

2\. No family

3\. It currently contains Parallel Universe Veronica Mars, with her jeans tight and her jacket fitted, barging past me into my penthouse like she owns the place and she's about to serve my eviction notice.

How the fuck could I help loving her?

"Well, won't you come in?" I head across the room to the liquor cabinet, because she hasn't said anything yet, which means this is going to hurt. If she has to ask me something and she's this serious about it, she's probably about to accuse me of murder. Again. "We still at alibi or are we all the way to accusation?"

"How about advice?" she says. "Or did you skip alliteration along with your third period lit class last Tuesday?"

Of fucking course she knows the only class I ditched last week.

"Do you know what I pierced in seventh grade, too?" The question is rhetorical, but it falls on deaf ears because she whirls back toward me, then gasps when she sees my face.

"Your lip!"

"This old thing? Had it for years, can't do a thing with it. But the _correct_ answer was penis, and no, I didn't quite understand the concept of a Prince Albert, but I did use a clean safety pin."

She doesn't listen, rushing across the room to take a closer look even as she scowls. "Dammit, Logan, why do you always have to start—"

Like pretty much all fat lips, this one feels like it's taking up half my face, even though it's really not that swollen. The raw rip in the middle makes it even more sore than the usual, but when she reaches up to touch it, I don't flinch away because we've been broken up for weeks. Even a touch that's going to hurt like hell is better than not remembering what her soft, quick little hands feel like on my body.

But she stops herself before she gets there, an old hand at navigating my various fist fight injuries. Her gaze falls to my hands even as her hips start to twist for a quick detour to the mini fridge and the bag of frozen peas we keep there. Probably we should throw them out as a biohazard, considering all their thaws and refreezings and the random smears of blood on the bag, but God knows nobody but Veronica would remember to buy more before the next fist fight. And as I unfortunately remember anew every few seconds…

We're.

Broken.

Up.

Which means nobody will buy new frozen peas. And there will be lots of fights.

But she doesn't move to get the high-mileage frozen peas, because when she sees my knuckles, Veronica's second gasp is a whole lot more horrified than her first.

She grabs my hands, flips them over.

"I'm liking where this is going," I drawl. "But little tip? I prefer it when you bust in unannounced for passionate kissing rather than passionate hand holding."

She looks up at me, those blue eyes anguished and wiped free of any attempt at humor.

"Logan, what's wrong?"

"Did I not mention the passionate hand holding versus other passionate physical activities debate? Because I come down pretty strongly on the other side of the aisle on this one."

"Not funny. Your hands are fine. If you're getting in brawls but you're not fighting back, something is really, really wrong. You were already drunk on the bridge when the PCHers jumped you, and you _still_ fought back, even then." She searches me. "What happened?"

I can't help the way my hands tighten on hers, even that small slide of my skin against hers focusing my attention the way nothing has in weeks. Because she knows it wasn't just "a bridge." It was "_the _bridge." The one where I lost my mom.

Veronica knows how low I went that night. And fuck it all, she still cares if I might have gone lower.

A hint of a smile touches my face. I brush my thumb across the back of her hand and let her go, because I don't want to wait for her to push me away.

"I took up boxing. It's a legitimate sport, I hear. Even the British do it. They give you these handy little padded gloves." I shrug. "My opponent got a bit…heated." As he should have, considering what I said about his mother. "Hence the face. But the hands are fine." I hold them up and wiggle my fingers. "They're as talented as ever, if you want to text the dexterity."

The concern falls away and she rolls her eyes and smacks me. It smarts on bruises she doesn't know about, but it's worth it to see her casual and confident again instead of trembling and afraid. I hate seeing her like that, even when it's for me.

"Nice to know you still care, Bobcat."

She heaves in a big breath and turns a little away, the casual eyeroll gone like she's a chalkboard that just got wiped.

"Hey, is everything okay?" My voice drops into the gentle register it only knows for her, and only after I've spoken do I realize how much it's giving away. But fuck, it's hard not to show my cards with her, and that's a shitty trait to have when up against a woman with the best poker face in the biz.

"Look, I came here because I knew you'd tell me the truth, not be nice."

My cheek twitches. "It's good to be appreciated for one's strengths."

She won't meet my eyes. "Wallace…left me."

Her voice shakes so bad I reach for her before I even register her words, and once they sink in, I'm even more befuddled than I was by the uncharacteristic show of emotion.

Veronica Mars doesn't cry unless someone has very recently set her on fire. And Wallace, her loyal hoop-shooting Sundance Kid, never strays far from her side.

These are the laws of the universe and until now, they've never bent. No matter how many times I secretly wished, like the horrible person I am, that she would cry over me.

"I didn't realize you two were, um…"

She sniffles hard, shoving the heel of her hand across her eyes. "Not like that. Worse. He friend-dumped me." She slings her bag onto the floor, the comforting bang of her taser ricocheting off the end of my couch. "Said he was sick of being a 'fair-weather friend' that I just needed for favors, information, and someone to sit with in the caf." She flops onto the couch. "I can't believe him. It's not like I've never done _him_ a favor. I've solved like a million cases for him. And okay, I charged for some of those, but those were just for people he knew. It's not like I ever charged _him_."

She glances up, then glares.

"Stop giving me 'I told you so' face."

I try, I really do. But it's basically impossible. As is keeping the tinge of sarcasm out of my voice when I say, "I don't think he's mad that you didn't solve enough cases for him, Veronica."

She bounces up off the couch. "You know what? This was a stupid idea. I'm going to go."

"You can." I slip my hands into my pockets. "Or I can tell you how to get him back."

She hesitates.

"C'mon, you've gotten _me_ back how many times now? I think I know a thing or two about how it goes."

She snorts. "Yeah, well, I can't just passionately kiss Wallace."

I smirk. "I'm pretty easy, huh?"

"That's the word on the street."

Ouch. That hurts a little more when she dumped me so recently for hooking up with Madison during our last off-again cycle. My smile freezes, then ebbs away.

"Shit." She takes another step toward the door. "I shouldn't have come when—Look, tonight I just—"

"What was the question?" I interrupt her broken attempts at apologies because I hate the idea of her swallowing her pride almost as much as she does. "The one you came all the way here to ask?"

She hugs herself, pulling her jacket tight enough that it no longer disguises how thin she's gotten.

"Am I a shitty friend?" She barely whispers it.

I cross the room, pick up the phone, and speak quietly into it for a minute.

When I put it down, she's watching me with wounded animal eyes that make me ache in a lot more places than the boxing league has.

"Gotta hand it to you, Logan. Of all the possible responses to that question, calling room service wasn't one even _I_ expected. But then you've always been a little impulsive."

"You don't eat when you're upset. You've been upset a lot this year." I gesture to her. "Not sure you got the memo that the Freshman Fifteen is supposed to go_ on_ to your hips, not off."

She's back on my couch now, and she glances down to tug at a loose thread on her jeans, her shoulders hanging so low her leather jacket gaps with the empty space.

"There's nothing you wouldn't do for a friend if they needed you to," I answer her quietly. "Even rack up a felony to save the child of a girl who hated you, and oh yeah, got knocked up by your boyfriend. If they need you, you'll do_ anything_." The word whispers out of me with weight, because I've always been afraid of what she might do for me, if I asked her to. How deep I could sink her. "But if they didn't need anything, well..."

She gives me the wounded animal eyes again. "What's with the shruggy part? What's wrong with that? Sounds like a good friend to me."

"Ask me why I took up boxing."

She jumps up, grabbing her bag. "Okay, I get that I need to ask more non-case-related questions of people sometimes. I'm not totally oblivious. Though you could choose a less patronizing way to rub it in, frankly. If that's all you've got, Dr. Phil, I'll just be—"

I step between her and the door, hoping if I don't take the bait and jump into the argument she's clearly spoiling for, then she'll use that big brain of hers to pick up on my body language and my tone and realize the truth. I'm not trying to hurt her.

Her thin fingers clamp over the arms of her jacket, squeezing so they won't shake, and I want to pull her into my arms so bad I'm physically ill with it. Instead, I brush the backs of my knuckles over her shoulder, then tip my head toward my darkened balcony; an invitation.

The balcony is farther from the door, and it's got something I need to make my point. Plus, I think it might be easier for us to really talk in the dark. Creatures like us prefer to have something to hide behind, in moments like this, and I'd rather it not be sarcasm this time.

Most of our most honest talks have taken place with me staring at my bedroom ceiling, because right after we've been together, our hearts are throbbing with that _thing_ that happens between us that I've never been able to put a name to. It's like a reaching, a rawness we call out of each other without even knowing it. It's worse when we kiss. Most intense when we're naked.

Which is why it's after sex that Veronica always starts poking around, asking questions about anything that might prove I'll let her down. Unfortunately, after sex is also the moment when I'm the most excruciatingly aware of all the ways I'm not worthy of her, which means I'm always too fucking honest.

When you have sex as often as we do, there are a lot of those scraped raw moments. A lot of dark questions and even filthier answers. A lot of furiously getting dressed with our backs turned to one another to hide the parts we were sharing mere moments ago.

But this time, we're still clothed and the question she asked was about her flaws, not mine. Which is why the answer will be gentler. I'm going to try to do the thing I always wished she would do for me: tell her the truth in answer to a hard question, but trust her good intentions, too. Imperfect as we both are, we never meant to hurt our friends. And it's not like she can't nail being a good friend, like she does everything else.

She's Veronica fucking Mars.

She's a phenomenon, at everything. She just needs a little push to get started.

She huffs out a little breath and turns toward the balcony like I argued her into it, but I can't tell if she's doing it to get away from my touch, or because of it.

Doesn't matter. This isn't about me.

I mean it is, because it's not like she hasn't turned my guts inside out a time or fifty with her emotional unavailability. It's just that I wouldn't ask her to change, just for me. Not even I'm a big enough hypocrite to do that, after all the ways I've been a terrible boyfriend. But for Wallace, for everyone else in her life, for herself, so she can have a best friend as close as she once was to Lilly…fuck yes. If it's for her, I'll push as hard as she needs to be pushed.

And if it benefits me in the end, I'm Machiavellian enough to enjoy it. Hell, she already said she came here because she knew I'd be honest, not nice. There's enough overachiever in me to try to do both, and if people think I'm not an overachiever, it's just the ones who haven't slept with me.

I follow her out onto the wide balcony, leaving the porch light off but the hotel room lights on so a soft glow bathes the space without revealing too much.

"Wallace thinks you're closed off because he doesn't understand that banter and solving cases is your love language. It's what you learned from your dad."

"Love language? Has somebody been getting into the self-help books they leave in the jail again?"

She slumps into a chair.

"Hey, more than one therapist has bought a sports car on Echolls' money." I take the chair next to her. "My mom was big on therapists, there for a while. And I think we both know what I learned from my dad." I move past it quickly, because she knows about the abuse but we don't talk about it. "In a world where your mom can disappear, where the whole town can turn on you because of something your dad did, in a town where you can lose all your friends like that"—I snap my fingers—"Fighting's the only time I feel in control. That's why I joined the boxing league. Love languages, Ronnie. People like us stick to what we know."

"I guess that's why you used to run those bum fights, then? Love languages?" She snorts. "It's a unique kind of charity work, Logan, I'll give you that."

I look down. "I don't think you want to know why I used to run those fights." It's barely a murmur, those words. I'd tell her, if she asked at the right time. But we'd both regret it. And as hard as she's hitting back tonight, I need to keep my skin thick.

The whole time I was growing up, I dreamed of when I'd be tall enough, strong enough that I could stand up to my dad and he'd be the one who ended up on the ground. As soon as my voice started to change and crack, I started doing push-ups in my room where nobody could see, and lifting stacks of books for weights. Some nights I'd do so many push-ups that I'd fall asleep right on the floor, wherever my arms gave out last. But every time I thought I was big enough, muscular enough to finally win the fight, I was wrong. Even in high school, with a decent weight room and a few months of discretely purchased steroids. Dad always slid past my punches and hit back in ways I never saw coming. He had decades of fights under his belt and all I had was blinding anger.

I didn't want to bother with martial arts, with any kind of choreographed "sparring" where there were rules and people pulled their punches. I wanted blood and teeth and cracked bones.

I wanted people as desperate to win as I was.

And I finally found them huddled around trash can fires, waiting for a payday. They fought dirty and balls out, even the skinniest or sickest-looking of them. I admired that. And the energy of it lit me on fire.

I was a self-centered, stupid young fuck. I didn't think for a second about how hurt they were after a fight, because I'd picked myself up after losing a thousand fights. Pain was just a Tuesday, for me. But once my dad took me to that homeless center, I learned a lesson that wasn't anything about PR or spinning a story for the media. It was about how thin those guys were under their layers of ragged clothes. How sick and unhappy and often not totally in touch with reality.

It's why I let him beat me without hitting back, that one last time. Even though it went on for longer than any of the whippings had for years.

But the time after that…the time after that I finally, finally fucking won.

Dad only taught me how to start fights, but the bums taught me how to win one.

"You wouldn't have brought it up if you didn't want me to ask," Veronica says.

"You asked me if you were a shitty friend, and I told you that you and Wallace are speaking two different dialects of friendship," I remind her. "I took up boxing because I don't know how to stop fighting. You took up detective work because you don't know how to stop digging for the truth. It's pretty textbook—throwing yourself heedlessly into danger to protect the people you love, because that's the only type of affection that feels safe to put out in the open where anyone can see it. It's all people like me and you know how to do, when we've lost everything one too many times. Thing is, the people we love pretty often don't appreciate it as much as we think they should. Actually, they get kinda mad about it." I give her a sideways look. "You know, there might still be room for you to join that boxing league."

She coughs out a laugh, looking at me head on for the first time since she got here. "Shit."

I grin. "Never thought we had the same problem, did you?"

She laughs again, looking down so all that golden hair falls like a curtain. "You're not squirming out of it that easy, Logan. I haven't put half so many people in the hospital as you have."

"I prefer to put them in the dentist's chair." I flex a fist, the little dent in one knuckle still there from when I knocked Mercer's teeth onto the floor of his jail cell. My favorite sound of all time.

"So what does that mean for me and Wallace, though? I mean, you joined boxing for a healthier outlet for your more violent impulses, but detective work is already as healthy as it comes, if you don't look too closely at the financials."

"Or how many trips to the hospital it's given you," I interject fiercely.

"Not that you're bitter," she shoots back. "My body, my choice to risk it."

Her body, but my heart. I keep quiet, because this is the argument that keeps us breaking up over and over again in different forms. She's bad at taking advice. But she's very, very good at learning from what she observes. So I sit back so a deeper shadow hides my face, and I turn it into a story, telling it in a voice so low that all the balconies beneath us won't be able to hear.

"Once upon a time, a boy lived in a high, high tower. Locked there by an evil has-been movie star."

"Logan…" The way she says my name sounds uncertain as it rides on a little expelled breath.

This is just one more thing we don't talk about, but I keep going.

"Not locked in with a key but with the power of the angry townsfolk turned against him, for the sins of his father and then, for his own sins, as carefully chronicled by the wise sages of a little outfit called the Tinseltown Diaries. He wanted to be as high above them as he could, so he'd be safe. But no one came to his tower, and he grew lonely. His only visitor was one spunky young detective-witch. She could knock a man down with the electricity from her fingers, or scare them away with the growl from her witch's familiar, which was of course, a pit bull."

She giggles a little. "She sounds badass."

I don't look at her, because the knot in my throat wants me to turn this into a funny story, not a true one, and that won't help her. But this isn't about me, or my goddamn pride.

"The problem was, the boy was still very lonely, because she only came when she had questions to ask of the tower oracle. And she didn't always have questions."

"Not true!" she burst into his fairy tale. "When we were together, I came over all the time."

I'm not ready to let go of the shield of the fairy tale, or the shadow I'd like to pretend can hide my face completely.

"And on the days when you came over, and didn't ask a question for a case, the boy was the happiest boy in the land. And when you were 'friends' again instead, you stopped coming over unless it was for a case." I can't figure out how to wind this into the fairy tale, because I'm not the Brothers fucking Grimm, so I just say it. "Wallace probably would like it a lot better if he got a few of those question-free days himself. Makes a guy feel a little disposable when you only want favors." I smirk at her like it's a joke. "Sexual or otherwise."

"Asking people for help on cases isn't because anyone's disposable," she says. "It's just what I spend my time on, okay? It's what's on my mind, it's _who_ I am. What's so wrong with that? Should I go back to talking about designer jeans and parties or whatever the 09er girls talk about? Would my friends like me better then?"

"See, that's the whole problem. I don't think you really believe any of your friends really like you. Or me, for that matter." I shrug. "If you did, you'd never have believed Madison meant anything to me, or that I'd be cruel enough to be with her _because_ it would hurt you."

"I am _not _here to talk about Madison." Her voice is low enough it sounds like she can barely get the words out.

"Ah, Deflection!" I smile and rise to go to the outdoor bar, opening the cabinet beneath it. "My old friend. Right alongside its cousin, Defensiveness. All part of the Keeping People At Arm's Length family of defense mechanisms." She sucks in an outraged breath and I wave her off. "Relax. It's just what happens to people like us, when the person closest to you gets murdered and your mom takes off, along with all your so-called friends."

"Look, you can say we're the same all you want, but we're not. If I was holding people at arm's length, it wouldn't hurt like it does when—"

Without even turning around, I can tell she's struggling with tears again and it's so fucking hard to reach for the Scotch instead of her. But it's a move I'm very familiar with, so my muscle memory can basically do it without me.

"Yeah," I say gently. "The self-protection thing doesn't work that good. Haven't you noticed?"

I set the bottle of Scotch on top of the bar for the moment, wondering what the hell happened to room service. There's a conference in the hotel this week, but that's no excuse for putting my order on the backburner when I've given more money to this hotel than any other guest inside its walls. I turn and lean back against the bar.

"You're a smart girl. It hasn't escaped your notice that you had no friends, and you met every single one of your new ones when you did them favors. Even me. Especially me."

"I'm not sure I love where this is going," she says, and the shadows can't hide the way her voice just cracked.

_This is just like surgery_, I tell myself desperately. You have to hurt her to help her. I struggle to stay calm, keep my voice level. Not go to her because I'm not allowed to anymore, so it won't comfort her anyway.

"Thing is, I don't think you've noticed that those of us who stuck around did it because we wanted something more from you than your detective skills."

"Yes, well I don't think that's what _Wallace _stuck around for," she says through a clogged nose.

I pull a stack of cocktail napkins out from under the bar and pass them over, because there's no point in pretending both of us don't know she's crying, even if I am still pretending every tear isn't like acid, burning a simmering hole in what's left of my heart.

"As much as I admit you can 'solve my case' more satisfyingly than any other girl, I wasn't talking about sex, and you know it."

She blows her nose. "Then what else are they sticking around for? That's the thing, Logan. You and everybody keep bashing me for always being busy on a case, always talking about cases, always bringing you all into them. But that's what I _do_. It's who I _am_. Do you remember my illustrious seven minutes as a hostess, when I swore off detective work? It didn't last because I didn't know what to do with myself! I didn't have anything to talk about, anything to do because I don't _have _anything else, like the rest of you do!"

I can't take it. I can't fucking take this level of pain from her, and I snap. I'm on my knees in front of her chair before I can think better of how hard this will wreck me tomorrow, when I remember how I lost my dignity for her. Again.

"I don't love you because of your goddamn cases," I hiss. "I don't care that you can find any missing person and wring a clue out of plain oxygen and dig up every last filthy secret that's been hidden on this planet. I don't _care _that you're the smartest person in every room. Is it sexy? Fuck yes, it's sexy. Is it useful sometimes? Goddamn right it is, or I wouldn't have hired you to find my mother back when you hated me more than anyone in California. But I've had women who were sexy, and I've had women who were useful, and you are the_ only_ person on earth I can't breathe without."

The words erupt out of me so hard and fast that my throat burns like I've been screaming for weeks.

"It has _fuck all_ to do with your job, Veronica," I rasp.

She's just staring at me, eyes wide and a tear caught in a crystalline drop on her cheek, quivering in the light from inside the hotel room like even it is too shocked to move.

I shove away from her chair, furious with myself that I made it about me again. "And I know Wallace feels the same, or he'd be best friends with your dad instead of you." I go back to the bar and grab the Scotch, moving it and two Waterford crystal glasses to the table beside her chaise lounge. "Mac, Wallace, Piz, Weevil, Duncan, me…we all stuck around after you solved our cases because we cared about you. Because we liked the personality you seem to think you don't have outside of detective work."

I'm just talking now to distract her from the confession that just ripped its way out of me. Trying desperately to bring it back to Wallace before she walks out, stepping over the bleeding heart laying on this balcony that oh yeah, probably belongs back in my heaving chest.

I open the mini fridge under the bar and grab a cold can of Coors Lite, carrying it back to where she sits. I'm calmer now, as I remember the metaphor I was going for with the Scotch. I'm the child of two actors and I know how to pivot a scene. So when she takes a breath and her lips start to hesitantly form my name—the easy let down speech is coming, oh how I do know it well—I interrupt her by placing the beer carefully on the table and distracting her with the one thing she can't resist. An unanswered question.

"Do you know what these are?"

Those beautiful blue eyes flick to the two different kinds of drinks and they narrow, her tears starting to dry as her brain cranks back into action. I steal the seat next to her, trying not to think about if it'll be the last time. I just raked her over the coals for only visiting me when she needs something but the proof is in the pudding: I've never kicked her out. I've never refused to help. Because I love anything that keeps her coming back, even as I wish—how I've always fucking wished—that that thing could be me. Just me.

I turn the Scotch. It's as old as I am, and almost as pretty.

"This is what the rich sip out of elegant glasses when they're brooding, alone in their towers. It's expensive enough to help us forget that the only things we have to keep us company are the things we buy."

"Logan…" The tears are back, shimmering in her long lashes. I don't want her pity, have never wanted it as much as I want her love, but she doesn't yet realize I'm talking about her, not just me.

"Because we've driven everyone else away, out of fear that they'll leave when we are no longer of use to them." It comes out as bitter as I am. I give the bottle a little shove across the table to her, offering it. "Go ahead. Try it. See if you like the taste."

"Why the beer?" she whispers, even though her eyes are on me, not it.

"Cheap swill." I crack a smile. "It's what Dick buys me when he's trying to shake me out of a funk. When he insults and pranks me into telling him what's really wrong. It's what we drank when we went surfing for the first time after I watched his brother jump off a building." I stare at the beer. "I've never felt forgiveness like that. The real kind, I guess, where it never comes up again." My finger traces the cold lip of the can. "It's cheap and it comes in six-packs because you drink it with friends. The people who know you're not that fucking elegant, and you're never going to be perfect. The people who keep your secrets. The people who stick around when your dad fucks you over and the accounts are frozen."

All three of us have taken turns footing the bill on this place. Duncan, me, and Dick. Depending on whose card worked on any given week.

I look up at my ex-girlfriend. "You're headed for a life of Scotch, Veronica. Trust me, you won't like the taste." I tap the top of the beer. "But if you go the other way, you've got to let people see you. Wallace can tell when you're holding back, and so can the rest of us. And frankly, it's fucking insulting."

There's a long silence. Stars hanging above us and streetlights gleaming from below. I think about having a drink about a thousand times. I think about leaving. I've used up every scrap of wisdom I could think of, every analogy and metaphor and button I know to push to get her off the shit path we've both been on for so long and headed for the real life she deserves.

"You have both," she says. "You're telling me all this like you know the difference between true friends or false, but you've got Scotch and beer right here and you don't spend time with anybody anymore but me and Dick."

"I own both because I still drink both. I'm a fucking mess," I say bluntly. "But you. You still have a choice."

And I don't hang around anybody but her and Dick because they're the only people left on earth that give two shits about me. Which is screwed up because Dick is _Dick_ and Veronica rips my heart out every other Tuesday.

Fresh moisture glitters in her eyes and for a second, I'm afraid she feels sorry for me and I can't stand it. She sniffles, shoving roughly at her eyes with the heel of her hand and looking away like that will hide it.

"One more pro tip?" I reach out and brush a tear off her cheek, the pad of my thumb moving slowly like it's savoring the taste of her. "Don't try so hard to crank off the water works when you go talk to him. Those tears have broken blacker hearts than Wallace's."

She moves, and I stop breathing because I'm not ready to watch her leave. I'm never ready to watch her leave.

But she flees straight into my lap. Her arms going around me and her head burying itself in my neck. My skin's immediately wet with tears and if I had a free hand, I'd pinch myself. This can't really be happening. Is this an acid flashback?

"You're always trying to save me," she whispers. "Even when I hurt you."

Well…yeah. This is so obvious I have no idea how I'm supposed to respond. Especially since half the time when I try to protect her, she's been pissed about it.

I have no idea what the right move is just now, but she's still clinging to me, and my arms fall to her shoulders, scooping her closer without my permission. She hangs onto me so hard I'm pretty sure I'm going to have tiny girl finger shaped bruises come morning.

I'm completely sure I'm going to treasure each and every one.

"I can't believe you just told me a parable about friendship where _Dick _was the shining example," she says into my neck.

"Say what you want about Dick. It's all true. He's a douchebag who should probably never be left alone around a woman, or let loose on society at large. But he's loyal."

She sits back, and I try not to think about how good it feels to be this close to her again. She leans in and my heart stops. My lips part, but it's my cheek that gets the brush of a soft kiss.

"I was wrong about you," Veronica says.

This is definitely an acid flashback. I never have dreams this good.

"Oh do tell..." I smirk like it's a joke.

"I think I came here secretly hoping you'd take a cheap shot because I know you can be meaner than Wallace ever would, and I kind of felt like I deserved it."

I raise my eyebrows. Veronica might not be quite so emotionally clueless as I thought.

She touches my chest. "But I think I knew if I came here hurting, that you'd be sweet. You can be, sometimes, when it's for me."

She smiles at me, and it's gentle, and more open than I've seen her face since before Lilly died.

My heart twists like a charley horse in my chest. What does that mean? Is she going to—

But before my mind can spin out of control, she bounces up and snatches the Coors Lite.

"I've gotta go. Gotta see a man about a beer."

My whole body feels cold without her in my lap. "After all that, you're not even going to stay and have a drink with me?" I shouldn't be pitiful enough to ask, but good god, she kissed my cheek. She_ smiled_ at me. Those aren't things she does when we're broken up. Then, it's all explosions and screaming and heartbreak.

"You better order in some more cheap beer for when I come back later for our pillow fight and gossip sesh." She grins, all her mojo back in place and sparkling around her like a tractor beam pulling the whole world into her orbit. "That's what besties do."

I smile, bemused by this turn of events. "I thought Wallace was your bestie. Wasn't getting him back the whole point of this particular bout of story time?"

"Your bestie is the one who knows you better than you know yourself," she says, "and who sticks around to comfort you, even when you can't admit you're hurting."

She glows as she smiles at me. The tears dry and the bounce back in her step, and all because of what I said. I'm in awe of my own plan actually fucking working out. In so much awe I can't entirely feel bad that I just got friendzoned so hard my head should be spinning.

She barrels through my hotel room, scooping up her bag and letting in the room service cart on her way out.

"How's tricks, Ratner? Hey, did you spit in my burger or his this time?" She pulls off one of the silver lids and snatches up a burger to take with her. "No matter. Spit is just part of the seasoning at a fine establishment like the Neptune Grand. I've been dining with the stars so long I probably wouldn't even like my food without it anymore."

She dazzles him with a grin and she's gone, just like that. I go inside long enough to tip Ratner, and then head back to the deck and reach for the Scotch. She didn't kiss me, which means we're not back together. It also means she's not coming back until she needs me again. But she will need me again, sooner or later. If there's one thing Veronica Mars never runs out of, it's questions.

I pour the Scotch, but don't drink. I'm just staring into space, still a little off-kilter. She called me her best friend. That's more of her than I think I've ever had, even when she was in my bed every night.

My phone beeps in my pocket and I put down the Scotch in favor of checking it.

Veronica: Just so you know, that'll be a naked pillow fight ;)

My heart jolts in my chest. Fuck me running, I didn't misread that soft look in her eye. We_ are _back together. As I think it over, a smirk lifts my lips. Girl knows if she'd have kissed me, she wouldn't have gone anywhere until dawn, Wallace or no Wallace. I toss the Scotch out of the glass with one quick flick of my wrist over the railing, and set it down to text one gleeful message.

Logan: Bffs 4 eva!

* * *

_Author's Note: I have at least 2 more chapters of this, maybe 3. Still trying to decide if I want to keep it clean or write some makeup sex. I've only watched through mid season 3, so PLEASE NO SPOILERS IN REVIEWS for the movie or S4._


	2. A Cookie For Your Thoughts

_Author's Note: reminder: this fic takes place in a non-canon moment in mid S3, after Logan and Veronica broke up, but before they got together with anyone else. _

* * *

**Chapter 2: Cookie For Your Thoughts?**

**Veronica**

I take a huge bite of burger, jogging the elevator button with my elbow. The food is hitting my system with a flush of new energy. The Neptune Grand has always used this wasabi-cucumber aioli that's really just six-dollar mayo for suckers, but it tastes like old times.

I didn't come here to get back together with Logan, but I knew it was only a matter of time. My life lately has been like an atom bomb, ticking away the last scraps of my sanity as I quickly approached the moment when I'd either implode entirely, or go back to him, no matter how much it would hurt both of us in the end.

Tick - the day I pulled Weevil out of his clean slate life and back to stealing cars, just so I could turn Madison's car into a cube. Chickened out at the last minute, and yet it was, unfortunately, not anywhere close to my rock bottom.

Tick - the murder case I flubbed by accusing the actual butler. After which my dad busted me down to rookie level: surveillance and stakeouts.

Tick - the cheating spouse case we had to refund after I listlessly delivered proof of infidelity in a manila envelope of glossy 8x10s of the wife in question passionately kissing a man. Which would have been fine, if the man hadn't been her lawfully wedded husband. And our client.

Tick – the day I got arrested for breaking into the building across the street from the Grand to point my telephoto lens at the windows of Logan's suite, to see what girl had him holed up for so many days without coming up for air. All I saw before the cops came were a hell of a lot of room service trays, and no signs of life, or sexual shenanigans.

Tick - Went digging. Found a child my arresting officer had hidden from his wife, that he conceived with a Tijuana prostitute. Used proof of said child to blackmail him into dropping the charges, which was effective but made me feel even worse than the arrest had. It is, as it turns out, incredibly easy to slip onto the wrong side of the law and just keep slipping until you're halfway to hell.

Tick – Spent a whole week sleeping less than an hour a night. Every time I closed my eyes, I would have the same dream. That I was slashing at Logan with the belt his father used to beat him with. Every swipe landing picture-perfect on one of the angled scars on his back that I knew so well. I never woke up until I'd whipped the belt across every remembered scar, opening each one up to bleeding again. Until he was crying, asking me, "What can I do?" Until he was running to Madison to lay his head in her lap, her fingers combing softly through his hair the way I used to when he was the one having the nightmares.

Tick - On the fifth sleepless day, found myself outside the Fitzpatricks' bar, dead drunk. It was the only place I figured I could find a guy who would fuck me hard enough to make me forget Logan, even if it was only for a minute. But Weevil caught me before I went in. When I made a half-drunk, half-sobbing pass at him instead, ended up getting a lecture about my "bad boy fetish" and sleeping it off under a crocheted afghan on his grandma's couch that smelled like dust, baby powder, and Virgin Mary candles.

I thought _that _was my rock bottom, until Wallace ditched me. He'd been trying to get me to talk to him about my breakup for weeks, and when he broke up with his latest girlfriend, I figured he'd finally understand why I didn't want to rehash everything that was already cycling in my head nonstop. Which is why I never asked about his breakup. Turns out, that wasn't his preferred method of coping, even if it was mine.

The elevator appears with a muted ding and I swing on, feeling the pull of Logan's presence from all the way down the hall. I could go back, sashay my way into his lap, and never come up for air until we were gray enough to buy matching track suits for golfing. I wouldn't have to go crawling back to the friend who might not want me, or try to give the apology that already stings like a lump in my throat.

But I can still hear Logan's lecture, every soft word of it ringing in my ears with all the ways I've thoughtlessly hurt him, and Wallace, and probably Mac and every other friend I've ever had. I don't deserve to kiss him again until I start making amends.

Nothing went like I thought it would when I fled to his hotel room. I've never seen him so quiet, so calm even when what he said hurt so bad I couldn't help but take a swipe at him. He did it for me, to help me. And I could tell he thought I was going to leave him anyway.

When he hit his knees in front of me, I felt something inside me crack. But I couldn't move or even breathe to speak. He was offering me everything I wanted so much that I just locked up, looking for the catch. The trick. The tell that he was conning me.

His eyes just rip me to shreds because when he looks at me, it feels like there's nothing in the world he cares about outside of _me._ But then he goes off and does the craziest stuff, like letting a building burn down in Mexico or sleeping with—

My throat closes just before I try to take the last bite of my hamburger and I have to shut my eyes.

_I've had women who were sexy, and I've had women who were useful, and you are the _only_ person on earth I can't breathe without. _

I believe him. And more than that, deep down I know he's never given a scrap of a shit about Madison. If I'm being honest, I've known since the day that I found out that he didn't sleep with her to hurt me. It was the anguish in his face when I asked him if he'd done it. I still remember what Lilly's face would look like, when her and Logan would be in their off-again phases and he'd find out about one of her conquests. Gloating smugness, even if they were screaming at each other. Logan's expression wasn't even in the same state as smug. It looked like it was breaking him just to meet my eyes that day. I was just too mad to admit it.

Since Lilly died, he's never acted like he gave a shit about any woman except me. Especially not Madison. That's what I was thinking about, though, when I went to the Fitzpatricks' bar and then when I threw myself at _Weevil _of all people. I thought if he could use sex to forget me, I could use it to forget him. It never worked for either of us. The longer we're together, the more wrong we both feel when we're apart. It's why each successive breakup is worse than the last.

And I know I keep people at an arm's length. I know I—rightfully, if you ask me—have trouble trusting. But until tonight, I've never realized how much of who I am is built on that very shaky foundation. And how many ways Logan and I are alike.

The doors open on the lobby and I toss the last bite of my burger in a trash can, grabbing up a handful of cocktail napkins from beside the complimentary cucumber water, and wiping my hands on them. Every time I walk through a hotel lobby, I think about Logan waiting on a couch, his bombed out and hopeful eyes glued to the penthouse elevator as he waited for his mother to appear. He never got what he was looking for, and I didn't either, any of the times I tried to get my mom back.

They weren't ever there for us when we needed them. Somehow, until tonight I never made the connection that_ I_ was doing that same thing to all the people I love, even though I'm physically in the same town with them still.

I lengthen my stride, hurrying out to my car. I've got to swing by a bakery on the way back to the dorms, but every bite of food I ate is starting to churn in my belly, not sitting as well as it did when I was still riding high on the love in Logan's eyes and the way his arms clasped me like I'd never left. Now, I'm headed back into the cold uncertain world and it never forgives me as fast as he does.

Once I get there, I pace past Wallace's door three times. But hey, maybe Piz will answer. Harmless Piz with his silly crush on me. That's not so scary, right? I make myself knock, and all but nail my feet to the floor because I want so badly to make an excuse and take off.

_Mac, Wallace, Piz, Weevil, Duncan, me…we all stuck around after you solved our cases because we cared about you._

Logan's words, running through my head and giving me strength. He has to be right, doesn't he? It's not like I stay friends with all my ex-clients. The ones who hung around must really want me for more than my favors, right? Enough, maybe, possibly…to forgive me.

Wallace opens the door, scowling. On him, the hurt shows through so clearly he doesn't even look angry, which would be easier to face. He doesn't even really look like himself when he's not smiling.

I shove the plastic container at him, smiling my biggest, most harmless smile that I use to weasel my way past security officers and parents and sometimes cops. "Peace offering? Olive branch? Pound of flesh? Just kidding, they're cookies, no flesh involved."

"Man…" He looks away, not stepping out of the doorway to let me inside. "Cookies ain't gonna cut it this time, Veronica. I told you, I'm through."

Tears well up in my eyes so fast my vision starts to swim. I scramble for all the things Logan told me, everything I should be saying, and all I come up with is the one thing that lay beneath everything he said to me tonight.

"Wallace, I love you."

I blink furiously, but I can't clear enough of my tears to see his reaction.

"Every case I took, every friend of yours I helped, every spirit box of snickerdoodles I hid in your locker, that's what I was saying. And I know I'm not always the best at listening, or casually hanging out on the weekends, and definitely not at, you know, saying things about feelings."

I have to hold the cookies in one hand and use my already-damp sleeve to wipe at my eyes because the blinking isn't stemming the tide.

"Back before I was a detective, before I could find stolen luggage or track down date rapists, when I was just an ordinary girl…my friends left me." My voice cracks, and I stifle the urge to glance down the hallway to see who might have overheard that humiliating admission. "I think part of me thought if I had something to offer this time, then my friends wouldn't leave. But because I didn't feel like I had anything else, I kind of didn't try to _be_ anything else outside of solving cases. And that left you with just a detective, not a best friend."

A tear breaks loose and drips down my cheek.

"Veronica..." Wallace takes a breath, dropping his head back to stare at the ceiling.

"No, it's okay. It's been recently pointed out to me that a few of you chose to keep spending time with me after I solved your cases. I called you friends but I didn't know how to _be_ a friend. I was such a different person before Lilly died and everyone ditched me…so now, my track record isn't great. If it goes past spirit cookies and solving murders I'm pretty much a babe in the woods."

He grips the edge of the door, his sneaker kicking at the carpet.

The tears are spilling over too fast to count individually now. He hasn't budged, hasn't said a word, and I'm not holding back anything now because with every passing second, it's becoming clearer to me just how much I care about him being my friend.

"I know I hurt you," I whisper. "It was never that you weren't enough. It was always me."

He inhales, and I hear him curse under his breath before he lets the door go and wraps me up in his arms, all loose-limbed and graceful like he always is. "Man, why you gotta come here with your 'it ain't you it's me,' and all your cookies and crying and shit? You know I can't hold out against all o' that."

A sob breaks against his shoulder, sounding almost like a laugh with the relief of it, and I cling to him so much harder than any of our few, casual hugs have ever gone. Hard enough I can feel his ribs and the sleek muscles of his back and smell the dark, spicy cologne he started wearing after high school. The plastic of the cookie container crackles a protest as I squish it in my hand.

"You're a good friend, Wallace. Can you teach me your mysterious ways?"

"I try, girl. I'll try." He lets me go, but grips my shoulder for another second, ducking his head a little. "But no more of this crying." He grins. "And no more of those store-bought cookies, neither! What kind of an apology is that?"

"I couldn't wait," I tell him honestly. "It was too hard not being your friend. I couldn't even do it long enough to bake."

* * *

_Author's Note: I know, that was a little short. But Veronica is headed back to Logan's hotel room next, so stick around for the next one! Thanks so much to the people who have been reviewing and welcoming me to the fandom-you're getting me excited about sharing more with this new group of readers!  
_


	3. Do-Over

_Author Note: The song for this chapter is "If You Want Love" by NF _

* * *

**Chapter 3: Do-Over**

**Logan**

The door beeps with a key card, and Veronica breezes inside. I don't look up from my video game, though I do note she didn't use her key last time she came over. Hasn't, actually, since we broke up. Though she should have known I wouldn't change the code as long as she still had a key.

After she left, I tried to sleep. Tried to convince myself she really meant that we were back together, that the hell of being away from her was over. Failed on both counts. I didn't really think she'd come back tonight, but here I am, waiting as close to the door as I can get without turning Golden Retriever.

She flops on the couch next to me with a huff of Promises scented air. It's so much lighter than the expensive perfumes that drowned our house and itched my throat after every one of Dad's old industry parties. She's always liked clean, simple scents. It's the one thing that hasn't changed since before Lily was murdered, when we were all friends and Veronica was still innocent and sweet.

"Oh my god," she says. "Talking about your feelings is _exhausting_."

"Preach it, sister." I hold up my left hand while I keep gaming with my right. She slaps me a high five and slides a little further down into the seat of the couch.

I let her rest for a few minutes, and don't ask how it went. Most women would be recapping the whole thing whether I wanted to hear it or not—not, always not—but it was probably as much as Veronica could stand to do it once. If she's not crying, Wallace probably took her back. Also, it's Wallace, so there was never any real doubt.

"Video game?" I offer. "Helping people avoid talking about their feelings since 1992."

"I think you promised me a naked pillow fight, you tease."

I turn off the TV and toss the controller, not waiting to see where it lands. Clasping my hands behind my head, I smirk. "I'm all yours, gorgeous."

I am also not breathing.

"Before I forget, Wallace sent this beer for you after told I him your beer versus Scotch analogy." She pulls a beer out of her purse that's even cheaper than the one she swiped from me.

Discomfort itches a bit under my skin at the idea that she told him what I said. None of that was stuff I would have said to anybody but her. I've got a reputation to maintain, after all.

"Hey now," I protest. "You're supposed to trust him with _your _soft, vulnerable underbelly, not mine."

"You _are _my soft, vulnerable underbelly, don't you know?"

She shifts onto her side, and I can feel her watching me and I still haven't dared look her full in the face. It's probably too many years of Lilly's head games, but I'm good at playing it bored and bantery until I have to look at a girl. Then everything I really feel pours out through my eyes and they can use it to break me into tiny pieces. Thank God I've never cared about any of them but Lilly and Veronica, because I barely survived those.

Veronica's fingers trace my cheek, like she wants me to look at her. My heart pounds and I resist. One more second of hope, before the verdict falls.

"Logan…"

My name, whispered all low and longing like that, and I can't help but look. Our eyes connect for less than an instant before she's on me, her breath breaking against my lips. I can taste the salt of her earlier tears, and her lips are a little chapped from crying, but her tongue is as wicked as it's ever been. My throat aches and I can't breathe properly around the pain in my chest and I keep kissing her anyway until spots dance before my eyes.

She pulls back a little to look at me, and she's glowing, my girl. She looks like everything is right in her world again and I like it so much I can't help but tease her a little.

"What? You think you can just passionately kiss me and that's all you have to do to get me back?"

"In the car, I might have another batch of the cookies I used to bribe Wallace..."

"Store bought or homemade?"

She smacks me for playing hard to get, and I love it.

"I'd like to think you are with me for a deeper reason than cookies and make out sessions."

_Are _with me. I've never loved the present tense quite so much.

"Don't you know? You're my soft, vulnerable underbelly. It's why I'm so easy. At least for you."

The spark in her eyes grows until she's simply dazzling and all I can do is drink her in.

"If you're so easy, give me a head start on that naked pillow fight." She starts to push off the couch and I catch her wrist.

"Wait." I regret it even as I speak, but I've had hours to think while she's been gone at Wallace's. Weeks before that. I want to go along with this sweet, easy reunion so bad, and I can't. "Fuck."

She eyes me warily. "I was hoping so, but suddenly the Doppler radar appears to have shifted and the sex storm might miss us entirely."

"It's just…"

Jesus, this is stupid. She was heading to the bedroom to _take her clothes off._ She'd forgiven me, she kissed me, she smiled at me. This is possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done and that's really saying something. But there's one big difference between Keith Mars and Sheriff Lamb—well, other than about 40 IQ points. Lamb takes the easy way, every time. And Mars does what's right, even when it's harder, even when it sucks for him. Even, actually, when it ruins his life and his family's life. And I know which man I'd rather be like.

"It's just that every time we break up, we're so desperate to touch each other again when we get back together, that we never talk through the actual problems. And they never get solved."

She groans. "More feelings? What have I done to deserve this?" She falls back on the couch. "Don't answer that." There's a second's pause, and I wonder what creative way she'll find to deflect. "Okay, talk, Echolls." She gives it her gangster voice. "I'm ready to sing like a canary, whaddya wanna hear?"

I hesitate. And then I say the dirtiest word in our relationship. "Madison. It happened. I don't know how to make it better. You said you could never get past it."

She sighs. "I'm…I shouldn't have made such a big deal out of that. I was upset. I had no right to say anything, since we were split up at the time, not that my um, rather intense jealous side listens much to reason where you're concerned." She gives me a half-fond, half-annoyed look I'm very familiar with.

"And usually I enjoy the jealousy, not gonna lie. I am a pretty noteworthy stud, and I am not above drumming up a little jealousy to get your attention. A man's gotta play to his skills, after all." I wink, but the laughter falls away too quickly when I think back on that night. "But not that time. I didn't enjoy it…that time."

"I know." She reaches out and touches my arm, her fingers stroking softly. "It got me because I know how little you care about Madison. How you're not even really attracted to her. So I figured the only reason you'd go there was because you deliberately wanted to hurt me. If I'd been in my right mind when we argued about it, I would have seen the truth in your face as soon as I found out."

"If I could take it—"

"I know."

She holds my eyes so steadily that for a second, I can't even remember what we're talking about. My chest is warm inside, like a cabin left to chill all winter where somebody finally, finally started a fire.

"Everything we needed to talk about, about what we do wrong as a couple," she began slowly, "I think you already said to me, even though you were pretending it was about Wallace. Am I close?"

Sometimes I forget. As well as I know her, sometimes even I forget how quick Veronica Mars can be to grasp the bottom line. I just nod, feeling a little bad at how hard I was on her, but not willing to take any of it back. It was the truth, and I really think her life will be better having heard it, even if she dumps me in the next ten seconds.

Then she says something I thought I'd go to my grave before I heard her admit.

"I'm…not good at talking about my feelings." She glances down, her grip on my arm strengthening. "But I _feel _plenty."

I move so her hand slides down my arm. I catch her hand and tangle her fingers together with mine.

"When it comes to you, I feel more than with anybody." The admission comes out strained, her voice a little off like it costs her to force out the syllables. "It's only you and my dad that I can't…it's just you two who I _need _in order for me to be okay at all. I mean, if I lost my other friends, I'd be crushed, right? But I'd come back from it. With my dad, and you, I couldn't…I…do you know what I mean?"

I cover our linked hands with my other hand, like I can shield the bond from all of the worst case scenarios that exist. "I do know." All too well. I picture that unbearable scenario in excruciating, technicolor detail every time she goes on a dangerous case. So like, twice a week.

She looks me in the eye again. "That's how I feel about you, Logan. Even when I'm not showing it." She lets out a little breath that's a bittersweet laugh. "Probably especially when I'm not showing it."

"I know." It's so quiet it scrapes on the way out. "It's just so easy to doubt." Especially for me, because who the fuck has ever loved _me_? No wonder most of the time it feels like a joke, or a drunken delusion.

I squeeze her hand, because I knew she was brave, but for Veronica, the conversations we've had today go beyond scary and into nuclear meltdown potential. It's my turn to be that brave. I take a breath, and open Pandora's Box.

"What about me? What have we not talked about that we need to?" I look down, the answer occurring to me before I'm even done talking. "The way I keep getting arrested."

"That's part of it." She hesitates. "Are you sure you're ready to hear this?"

_Take it like a man._ It's what my dad always said. And he never pulled his punches, not even when I was really little, and not even close to being man enough to take it.

"I can take it," I reassure her. "Give me your best shot, Mars."

She inhales, watching me, and her head tilts a little and an invisible fist has me by the throat, waiting for everything she sees that's wrong with me.

"You're _wild_, Logan. And I kind of love that about you, how impulsive you are, how little you care about rules or what people think. But there's got to be a way for you to be that without going entirely off the rails." She hesitates. "The worst of it is always when someone hurts you, and I get that. But even when we were together and you were mostly happy, I think, you still were partying in Mexico and illegal gambling and burning down buildings and trashing hotels."

She's not wrong, and I don't even try to defend myself this time. I just wait, like I have so many times, for the verdict that I can no longer control because my past behavior has already sealed the deal. She takes a shaky breath.

"I lost my mom to alcohol, my ex Troy to drug dealing, Lilly to sex. You scare me, Logan." A tear wells up in her eyes. "I've tried, so many times, not to love you. Because I can read people pretty well. And I don't see any fucking way you're not going to end up dead or in prison."

The curse word scares me, coming from her, as much as the way her voice breaks at the end. The truth of her words quivers in the air even before her shoulders start to shake. I pull her into my chest and hold her, feeling inadequate as anything to comfort her, because I'm the one who hurt her. I'm the one who _keeps _hurting her. And I don't know how to stop.

She's right about me. I can't even lie and say there's a chance because most of me knows this is what I am. And it scares me as much as it scares her because I don't know if I can be fixed. She probably wouldn't believe me, but I've been trying as hard as I know how to try.

"I know you've tried to change for me," she says thickly. "But you can't change for someone else, not entirely, and I can't erase everything that's been done to you, no matter how much I love you."

"Tell me what to do." It comes out gravelly. "Tell me_ anything_ I can do and I'll do it."

"That's the thing, Logan." She sits back, shoving at her already-swollen eyes with the heel of her hand. "I don't think you know how to change. I'm not even entirely sure it's in your power."

I let my hands fall to my lap, both of them just lying there like broken things. Useless, because there's nothing else I can do with them to fix everything they've already done. "So that's it? It's just over? You're giving up on me?"

"I…I don't know what people do, in cases like—therapy," she interrupts herself suddenly. "Everything you've been through, it would be too much for anyone. But you need a way to cope that's not drugs. And that's what people do, right? They go to therapy."

A moment ago, I wouldn't have said anything was funny in the entire world, but that's the magic of Veronica Mars. She can turn my emotions on a dime. The corner of my mouth lifts in a smirk.

"Everything I've been through, you've been through," I point out.

"Not—"

"Most of it. So are you going to go to therapy and talk about everything that's happened and how you feel about it?"

Silence.

"Wow," she says. "I really, really don't want to. That makes me a hypocrite, doesn't it?"

I can't contain the chuckle any more, and it bubbles out of me. "No doubt about it," I confirm. "Hate to say it, Mars, but you really_ are_ a hypocrite."

She pouts. "You still love me?"

"Yeah." I brush her mussed hair back from her face. "I never stop."

Her eyes widen slightly, and she can't seem to stop looking at me, like she's waiting for the punchline, or the catch. She won't find either. I'll even go to therapy, if that's what she wants. Fuck, I want it to work as bad as she does. I need it to work because I can't live without her, and she can't stay with me if I keep snapping the way I do.

I tried it before, when I was young, but that was with Mom's therapist who specialized in manicure-related meltdowns and ennabling the pill popping of trophy wives. Besides, Mom was always really clear about what things we didn't talk about to outsiders who could sell our secrets to the tabloid rags, and that included therapists.

"Fine," Veronica says. "I hate the idea, but I'll go. But it might take me a while to save up, or maybe I could…"

"My treat," I interrupt, well-used to that guilty look on her face. "Half the reasons you need therapy are my fault and the other half are ripple effects of shit my dad did, so it's only fair. We'll get the bulk discount on therapy, together." I grin. "I bet you cry uncle first."

"No way." Her back snaps straight. "As long as one of us is going, the other one has to keep going. That's the deal."

I start to laugh. "Only you could turn therapy into a contest."

"Wanna know what else I can make into a contest?" She jumps off the couch, her eyes shining again and if we're making up again, dammit, I want more than one stingy kiss, but she's too fast and she's already out of arm's reach and heading for the bedroom. "My naked pillow fight."

My eyebrows go up and I calculate, wondering what the likelihood is that she's serious. Then her bra flies out of the bedroom door.

I vault over the back of the couch without a second thought, sprinting after her.

* * *

_Author's Note: That was supposed to be a cute, fun reunion but neither Logan nor I could let it go, because it would just be a band aid, not be really fixed. So in apology for the angst, for the next chapter we shall have smut! And goodness, Logan does make writing smut fun, doesn't he? _


	4. Naked Pillow Fight

**Chapter 4: Naked Pillow Fight**

**Logan**

The bra came from the right side of the door, so I go left, anticipating the ambush. But of course then Veronica comes at me from the right, double-anticipating. She swings a pillow from each hand so I take the hit from both sides at once. I burst out laughing and try to wrest one of the pillows away from her. She's not even topless, the little minx. Must have pulled the bra off out through the armhole of her shirt just to have some lingerie to lure me in.

I make a grab, but she's agile and darts away, rolling across the bed. I dive after her, taking an airborn pillow in the face as she re-loads from the pile on the bed. Somersaulting off the bed and back to my feet, I look for her, but she's already retreated to the far side again, grinning and her eyes bright with the rush of competition.

I double down on a long shot and rip my shirt off, throwing it in her face. She rips hers off and throws it right back and I hoot with laughter. "Your competitive side has always gotten you in the most trouble, Ronnie."

"Sure about that?" she taunts back, but her tits are bare and tight and as soon as I see them, I'm hit with the sensory memory of her velvety soft nipples against my tongue. They used to tighten at the first hint of my breath touching them, like they couldn't be happier to see me.

A pillow smashes me in the face.

Okay, I'm pretty sure that one just apparated from thin air, while I was cataloguing exactly which parts of Veronica's body were the least capable of hiding her reactions to me. Her nipples are the second most honest. The third most honest is her eyes, which always gave her away before the studied lightness of her voice and carefully controlled face. But the most honest part of her body, when it came to me…

I consider if I took off my pants and hurled them at her, if the same trick would work twice. Because I'm desperate to find my way back to the parts of her that always give away how much she wants me.

"Careful, Echolls. Your situation there isn't going to let you walk pretty soon, much less run fast enough to win an epic pillow war." Veronica's finger traces a little circle in the air, indicating the fly of my jeans.

"Ah, the curse of a dirty mind."

"And here I always considered it one of your strengths."

"Did you? I'm intrigued. Which of the ideas from my dirty little mind was your favorite?"

Her eyes flick up and to the left, just for an instant, thinking about it. I launch across the bed, catching her by the waist and rolling her over my body, and then underneath me.

"Victory at all costs," I quote, dropping a kiss on the tip of her nose. "Winston Churchill."

"The world's known expert in topless pillow fights."

Her skin is exquisite against mine, and my lids droop to half mast, enjoying every place we're touching. I drop my head and brush my cheek against hers, our temples aligning exactly.

"Are you trying to kill me here?" she says, a little breathlessly.

"It wouldn't be the first time you've accused me of being a murderer." But I shift my knees to take a little more of my weight, no matter how much I miss the friction of her body pressed tightly against mine.

She grabs me by the back pocket and presses me closer again. "Not what I meant." Her tongue traces the hollow beneath my ear and I go lightheaded so fast spots flicker before my eyes. "You weren't too heavy. You just normally don't make me wait for it this long."

"Don't I?" I brighten, a sly smile taking my face as I pin her wrists high over her head and lean down to her.

I nuzzle my nose the barest touch of pressure alongside hers, my breath coming quick as it touches her lips. She licks them, her chest heaving under mine in a way I'm enjoying immensely.

"Are you waiting for an invitation or the next lunar eclipse?" she demands.

"I was just remembering all the other times I made you wait for it." I shift back until my chest is barely contacting hers, just brushing her nipples. And then I rock slightly, just enough to feel her nipples tighten at the friction.

She tries to take her hands back and I bear down on her wrists, letting her feel my greater strength. Her eyes dilate with arousal. "Dammit, Logan, you know I hate that."

"No," I breathe, "I don't think you do." Her nipples are rock hard against my chest now and her hips begging upwards beneath me. "I just want one minute to enjoy you when you're not running away."

She subsides, softening into my grip. "I came here," she pointed out. "Twice, just tonight. If I'm running away, I'm doing a shitty job of it."

The ghost of a smile touches my lips. "You usually kind of do."

The scent of her always kills me, this close up. The wisp of sweetness emanating from the hollow beneath her jaw where she always dabs her perfume. She used to put it on her throat, until I kept getting a tongue full of bitterness when I'd kiss her neck, as I inevitably was drawn to do. It tickles something deep inside my bones to know she's kept the habit even when we've been apart. Like somehow, I still have some claim on her if she's putting on her perfume differently because of me.

Her eyes go hazy, responding to some change in my expression I have no control over, and when she speaks, her voice catches a little. "Didn't you miss me at all?"

I know what she wants. I lower my head until our lips are close enough to feel the heat from each other.

"You have no idea," I whisper over her mouth, her lips parting as she begins to pant.

She breaks first, attacking me with a kiss so ferocious that her whole little body bows as she fights my hold to get closer to me. I groan into her mouth, my erection thickening painfully. Her hands are on my jaw, my throat, nails scoring my chest and I'm on my back by the time I realize I must have let her wrists go. But I don't care because she's cradling my face, her palms soft and fingertips urgent.

"Oh no, your lip," she gasps, and pulls back a little. "Does it hurt? Am I hurting you?"

My swollen lip is throbbing and the split in it stings brightly. It's not healed enough for as rough as we're being and I don't give even the hint of a fuck.

"In case you haven't noticed, Bobcat, I like a little pain with my pleasure when it comes to you." I surge up to sitting, scooping her into my lap so she's kneeling astride me, her tight little bottom tucked into my hands. She's so short, we've long since discovered this is the best position for kissing for us. Well, this or her boosted onto the bathroom counter with a wedge crammed in the door and an Out of Order sign slapped to the outside surface.

To this day, I get a little hard every time I pass an Out of Order sign.

She's trying to be good; I can tell because she's moved on to my neck, where she can use her teeth on me without hitting anything bruised or swollen, and I am miles from complaining.

"Does this make us BFFs with benefits?"

She grins against my neck. "Depends. What all does the BFF with benefits package include?"

"Oh, you want to see the package?"

I reach beneath her to pop the button on my pants.

She hops off my lap and tugs down my jeans. "Looks like the deluxe."

I snort with laughter, and play along with the ego-stroking. "You lucky girl…"

She looks up at me, her eyes still red from all the crying she's done tonight, and her smirk slips a little. "I am, aren't I?" she whispers. "You forgave me, both you and Wallace." She tries for a smile again but it's still a little wobbly. "Store bought cookies and all."

The part of me that's always, always hungry for approval wants to take credit and play the magnanimous, forgiving boyfriend. But I know Veronica has that place in her too, even if she's more well-loved than I've ever been. Even if she keeps her need better hidden than I do. So I pull her back into my lap, because I need to hold her even more than I need to get into those low-slung jeans of hers.

"You're worth forgiving." I slide my hand into her hair and let her burrow into the warmth of my neck for a moment. "You okay?" I murmur it, quiet and private like it's another one of her secrets I'm keeping safe for her.

She nods against my skin. "It's funny, for as many fights as we've had in this hotel, how much I like coming back to it. It feels a little bit like mine." She huffs out a breath. "As much as anyplace containing this much bad modern art could ever be mine."

"That's because you know you can always come back here. Even if we've been fighting, even if I'm mad at you, even if I'm not here. That key is yours." And so am I.

"Yeah, I know. It's a little risky in terms of tripping over half-naked girls, though. It's a wonder the housekeeping department can keep them all in tiny towels."

I wince. I don't blame her for it being a sore point, as many times as she's almost come back to me only to find me with another woman. "You know why I do that." I'm not going to say it, because it's a little fucking humiliating. I let everyone else think it's just a really healthy sex drive.

"Yeah. Doesn't make it any more fun. That's why I kick 'em a little when I trip over them."

"Doesn't have a thing to do with how I feel about you," I remind her.

"Said every cheating husband ever, in his 'But honey…' speech."

"Have I ever cheated on you when we were actually together?"

She winces. "This is the worst pillow talk ever."

I take her arms and hold her enough away from me that I can see her face. "No. Never happened. Because there's no one else I would ever want, if I could have you. And you know it, but you let doubt gnaw at you anyway." I scowl at her, frustrated. "But when you're afraid, it's me you come running to every time, because that's more true than any bullshit doubts you've ever had."

Her lips part on a little intake of air as she listens to my voice rise with the passion of it and before the last syllable is even out, she kisses me.

The force of it knocks me back on the bed and this time she follows me down, moving from my lips to the pounding pulse in my throat, to my naked chest. By the time she gets to my stomach, I'm thunderously aroused again and the feeling of her small hand wrapping around me wrings a groan from my throat.

My eyes have fallen shut, so I don't even see it coming, just feel the heat when she licks the tip of my cock. Hesitantly, then all the way from base to tip. I hold very, very still.

Veronica was less experienced than I ever would have guessed, when I finally got her in my bed. And a lot more tentative than I'd have expected from a girl with her ball-busting mojo. But later, when I found out everything that had happened to her, I started to understand.

It's far from the first time she's had me in her mouth, but she's never gotten super confident with it, despite my unambiguously enthusiastic response. In the time we've been together, she's started to get a little more comfortable with experimenting. The more casual and relaxed I am, the more her wicked side comes out in the bedroom, and there is nothing sexier to me.

It always makes me wish that I would have gone for her, not Lilly, back when we were younger. That I could have been her first kiss, her first man. I bet she'd be kinky as all hell by now, if she'd been safe with me the whole time she'd been having sex.

The heat of her mouth surrounds me, sliding down my length and every muscle in my body melts. I usually try to keep some dignity in moments like this, but it helps Veronica get more confident when I don't hold back, so I let my breathing go ragged, my hands fisting in the bedsheets. One of her hands finds its way under my leg, her nails trailing down the back of my thigh and my hips jump in immediate response, goosebumps rippling across my stomach.

"Jesus, you can't do that when I haven't had you in weeks." I find her hands and pull her back up on top of me, kissing her as sweetly as I can manage when I want to slam full-length into her. But I'm enjoying this too much to make it quick, and it's way too ingrained in me to not take my pleasure until I've given hers. Lilly may have been a demanding lover, but she started me off right. A man always gets to finish, but the lady comes before, during, and sometimes after.

I hook my finger into Veronica's jeans and give her button a little questioning tug.

"Yes," she gasps, coming back to my bruised mouth to give me a kiss so gentle I fall for her all over again.

"You know I can't take it when you're sweet to me," I rasp, my hands starting to shake.

"I do know…" She smiles, but her hands clutch me harder and it stabs straight into my chest. Fucking Christ, she takes me to pieces on nights like this. When I can remember a little too well what it's like when she's gone.

To distract myself, I unzip her jeans and slip my hands down the graceful curve of her back and under her panties. Over her glorious ass and strong thighs, pausing at the vulnerable backs of her knees just to enjoy the sight of her panties falling to her ankles. I lay a kiss on her leg and strip her bare, her leg coming around my back to urge me closer as soon as it's free. Her breath is starting to come faster, because she knows what's next even before I smirk and bury my head between her thighs.

This is my favorite thing in the world. Because I can make her writhe and beg and build from tiny gasps to involuntary moans to little scraps of a scream. It's the most open she ever gets about how much she wants me. And I goddamn well _know_, better than I know the blood coursing through my own veins, that she's never been like this with another man.

There was a reason Duncan was the one making all the noise when they were alone in his bedroom. Veronica Mars is a creature of complicated tastes, and I doubt most men would take the time to figure her out, if she'd even let them.

She kisses like she's half a breath away from ripping my clothes straight off my body, but her mind is always cranking a thousand miles per hour, looking for the trick, the angle, the danger, and it takes a very subtle talent to get it to shut it off.

But once her clothes start to come off, she gets a little lost. Uncertain, nearly shy, and always _always_ trying to pretend like she's not. She needs it to build slower than most guys are willing to go, with lots of reassurance that comes from gentle brushes of knuckles against her skin, and kisses to her hair and the nape of her neck and her wrists, with the sheets pulled casually up over her so she doesn't feel too exposed. Never words, because that would draw attention to the fear that she still won't admit lives so much inside her.

Fortunately, there's nowhere I'd ever rather be than in bed with her, so slow is good with me, and stamina is my personal gift. As is patience, when she squeaks through her first orgasm, and I tangle her fingers with mine and slowly start to drive her back up until her second crests and rolls, shaking from her shoulders all the way down into her toes. Her hands convulse and she pulls away, folding into a little ball as she quakes and pants through it. I ease my body in behind hers and stroke her hair away from her damp face, playing the silky strands through my fingers as I inhale her scent down into my lungs like a ritual.

She pushes back against me, asking for more, and I'm so hard against her ass that it aches all the way into my balls. I snatch a condom out of the bedside table and roll it on, stroking kisses over the back of her neck. I don't ask how she wants it, because I already know. This is her favorite position to start in, because I can cuddle my body all the way down hers, holding her tight. She has to feel completely safe or she can't come at all, no matter how many tricks I pull.

It's fine with me, too, because this position makes it easy to warm her up and give her what she needs without hurting her. Because Veronica Mars needs her foreplay gentle, her hands seeking out mine whenever she's uncertain about what's happening, but she likes to be fucked _hard_. Ridden rough and deep, and rocketed into an orgasm that always leaves her throttling my dick like we both might die of it.

She thinks I hate the thought of her with another man because I'm a jealous, possessive motherfucker, and she's not wrong. But I also hate it because I know they'd never get the ebb and flow of her tastes right to satisfy her. They'd push her too fast, or yank off her clothes in the heat of those atomic kisses like she won't mind, and she'll pretend that she's fine and into it, and what if they don't notice the difference? Or what if she begs for harder before she's wet enough and they hurt her? What if they don't know to hold her hand when she comes?

I bury my face in her hair, half-crazed with the thought of it, and she reaches back and cups my neck.

"What's wrong?"

She's wet as almighty hell, the entrance of her already pressing at the swollen head of my cock like she's dying for it, and she still knows me well enough to ask.

"I love you so fucking much," I say, my voice raw. "And I can't take the thought of you not being okay."

"Lucky for you, cowboy," she drawls. "I'm pretty okay at the moment. Or I would be, if you'd wiggle that six-shooter of yours just a little bit to the…left."

She teases, but she also turns her head enough to catch my lips and I pour all my worry and fear into her hot little mouth, and she's right there with me. She always has been. No matter what she says, how hard she tries to pretend she doesn't need anyone, she's always been there for me, no matter how fucked up I was.

But the more she kisses me, the more I forget I've ever needed anything but to give her my too-swollen cock and let her fuck every last thought out of my head.

When she reaches back and takes hold of me, guiding me in, I know she needs it bad. She's rarely so bold. But then, I guess she rarely has to be, with me.

But dammit she's tight…I make myself stop, my muscles twitching, and nuzzle my knee in between her legs, stroking my palm down the outside of her thigh so she can feel me with her. Parting her legs is one of the hardest things for her, and I try to take it slow when I have to do it. But this time, she melts open, arching back into me.

I push in a little deeper, but it's been weeks since we were together and she's fisted tight with wanting more. Resisting my efforts to get inside even while she clenches tighter with needing it.

"Please," she gasps, her hips wriggling despite my attempts to hold her steady. "Harder."

When she's like this, she doesn't care if I hurt her, but I do.

"You think I'm not going to give you what you need?" I whisper low and dark in her ear.

She whimpers, and I think it was supposed to be a word but I can't totally tell because my hand is between her legs and she's getting it insanely wet and I'm not sure I understand language right now. I bite her shoulder and give her a sharp thrust that crams another inch of my cock inside.

"Oh god oh god oh god…" She mutters and claws at my shoulder, and I just keep circling her clit with wet, languid fingers like I've got a century or two to devote to this. She loves the hard, quick little thrusts I give her, and they stretch her slowly so I can get in without harming her, even while she's strangling my cock with the edge of a third orgasm I refuse to give her yet.

"Please…" It comes out when her breath breaks, and her nipples are so hard now I have to stop playing with them and just cover them with my palm and the arm that's wrapped underneath her body and slowly going numb with it.

"How hard do you need me to fuck you this time?" I growl.

The other reason I love this position is that I can hold her and whisper dirty things in her ear until she's hot and wild enough to go for her real favorite position, which is bent over with her ass cocked up for me, her hands braced against something so she can take it as ferociously as I want to give it to her.

Her breath gasps and stutters her assent, but she doesn't share whatever fantasy is locked up inside her beautiful head right now.

In my wildest daydreams, I think about how uninhibited she'll be someday, when she's been safe with me for so long she can't remember anything except being adored and my cock wringing orgasms out of her in every filthy, depraved way she could ever think to ask for.

My hips punch upward, seeking more of her even as she melts down over my swollen dick. Almost there. I seduce her neck, playing her throbbing pulse with my tongue and teasing her shoulder with my teeth while she begins to shake. I shift my fingers, giving her the heel of my hand to press against so she can control this orgasm. She's so slick I nearly slip out of place, but then I feel her clit start to pulse and I wrap my free arm around her and hold her down so I can slap deep into her.

The waves of her orgasm squeeze me from base to tip and I start to feel a fluttering in the back of my brain and grit my teeth to hold off. I need more, always more of her. Instead I hold very still and let her writhe back and forth, grinding herself between my hand and my erection as she dissolves into this tiny, keening sound that exists mainly in her chest and barely escapes.

I nuzzle a kiss in under her earlobe and hum so she can feel the rumble of my chest against her back. It's not as distracting as an "I love you," but it means the same and she knows it, and it'll help her feel me here with her without breaking her trance with words. My free hand strokes her, so softly everywhere I can reach her, so the caresses will fade into all the other shades of pleasure I want for her. But almost too soon, she jolts against me and I know she needs more than her small rocking movements can give her.

"More," she breathes. "Logan, please, _more_."

I boost her up to kneeling, slipping out for just long enough to position her hands flat against the wall, my knees spreading hers wider. The head of my cock finds her entrance, and I tease her until I'm soaked and she's begging in gulps of air that never quite make it into words. Then I slam all the way in, driving her up off the mattress as I wring the first scream out of her. I cup her between the legs, just a soft touch so she can take as much as she needs, then start to fuck her so aggressively that her biceps flex and tremble with the effort of holding herself away from the wall.

"Ah-ah-ah," she stutters. "_God_. Harder."

I torque my hips, getting the angle high enough to punch straight into her sweet spot and when I hit it, I hear her nails scrape paint off the wall. I grin like I'm meeting all the angels of heaven at midnight sharp.

Sometimes I need to brace a hand against the wall to back her up when she starts to go limp, but tonight she's holding strong, so I wrap both arms around her and hold on. "Fuck," I groan through gritted teeth. "I love you so much it's probably going to kill me."

She makes a sound that could be a laugh but when the next thrust slams home, it gargles into more of a sob. I fuck her until my abs feel like they're burning bright red, my ass is spent and my legs are straight up torched. When I burst, she was there a breath before me and she's clamped so tight all I can do is push deeper, feel more until the pleasure is too much and we both fall.

It takes longer than I'd like to admit before I can sort out my arms and legs and cuddle her instead of squash her, but then she turns and her bare breasts are soft against me, her lips even softer against my ear when she whispers, "When you told me you were falling in love with me, that day in your car? I was already there. And I never, never would have told you."

I grin and settle her more fully on my chest, spent in so many ways I don't care if I ever wake up again. "And now?"

"Now…" Hazy blue eyes blink, long lashes toying with my emotions even before her lips tilt toward a smile. "Now I'm so far gone for you I can't even see my way back."

"Just the way I like it." I let out a breath that unwinds me into the bed, and I fall asleep to the faint tingle of her fingers tracing beautiful, unspoken words onto my chest.

* * *

_The End_

* * *

_Author's Note: Thanks so much for your kind words about this story, and for giving me a chance at a new fandom! I have a new story coming up, with a whole steam-engine's worth of smut, and some comedy (why is smut comedy not a genre?). Here's the description, because I'd love for you all to stay with me for the next story. I'll probably start posting chapters next week!_

**Lemonade**

Many lemons went into the making of this fic! Veronica and Logan are happily together, but they end up working out some of their longest standing emotional issues in the bedroom, with periodic insights and comic relief from Logan's ball-busting ex-Mossad therapist, who is either Veronica's most formidable nemesis or her new best friend.

A loose collection of established relationship smut-fics, not super canon-compliant.


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